The Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore is a complex system of environments that over the centuries—starting from an earlier pre-existence that arose between the eighth and ninth centuries—has undergone many variations and structural additions, from the Middle Ages to the present day. Despite the high tourist attendance and the vast decorative apparatus that the church houses, its fruition lacks support materials capable of guiding the ideal visitor in discovering the church, its history, and its features, as well as obtaining information regarding the sculptural and pictorial works. The essay is focused on the creation of a digital platform capable of guiding the ideal visitor through useful information for the museum visit: an online system that allows free access, both on-site and remotely, capable of providing an interactive guided tour. The platform takes advantage of appropriate hotspots positioned along an ideal visiting path; each hotspot allows access to descriptive panels through which the works of art are classified. The guided tour is implemented through texts, images, videos, and digital models, according to the most relevant environments: information is organized in thematic graphic layouts, accessible through intuitive and immediate readability. The work carried out is aimed at the touristic promotion of cultural heritage through the creation of a virtual environment and allows the sharing of content with a wider audience, ensuring the museum enjoyment of the environments involved and supporting the visit of the place.
Digital Reconstruction of the Paradox—Escher’s Relativity
This paper explores the digital reconstruction of Escher’s Relativity through geometric analysis, 3D modeling, and extended reality applications. Starting from a perspective decoding of the lithograph, the authors reconstruct a coherent three-dimensional architectural model that preserves the paradoxical spatial logic of the original image. The model is then implemented in augmented reality environments, allowing users to experience and navigate the impossible space at full scale. The study demonstrates how XR technologies can enhance the understanding of perceptual paradoxes, enabling immersive interaction with complex spatial illusions while highlighting the relationship between geometry, perception, and representation.
Connection & Knowledge: from AR to AI. The Case of Sicilian Lighthouses
The development of ever new and innovative technologies is now able to significantly enrich the numerous possibilities in the field of research, use, enhancement and understanding of the existing cultural heritage. In this sense, the initiatives in the field of augmented reality and artificial intelligence appear to be a possible asset through which to undertake connection and mixing networks between the intrinsic and extrinsic data that characterize buildings. The use of semantic and ontological data – that is fields based on an increasingly solid interoperability and exchange of data – make it possible to develop a mutual knowledge in a relationship of connection between territory and architecture. This contribution, therefore, investigates the possible application of augmented reality and artificial intelli-gence in the context of Sicilian lighthouses, or a heritage characterized by well-defined architectural and landscape components.